Ken Borland

For cricket lovers, especially those who value the Test format above all others, the direction in which the sport seems to be heading, judging by the events of the last week, are enough to make you want to tear your hair out.

For many, the fact that the Proteas, who seem on the verge of entering a very exciting era in red-ball cricket, will play just 28 Tests in the next five years is infuriating and bordering on tragic at the same time. When one sees how fabulously Kagiso Rabada is bowling, how promising his fellow pacemen Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen look, as well as spin-king Keshav Maharaj, and one realises they will never get the chance to put up the same sort of numbers as lesser cricketers from England, India or Australia, then it is natural to feel great distress.

And then one seeks someone to blame for the damage they have done to something as loved and cherished as Test cricket.

Which just leads to more frustration because there are a multitude of players who have let down the game – the International Cricket Council, The Big Three, Cricket South Africa, all the different T20 franchise leagues, broadcasters, sponsors, and even us, the fans.

I am confident Test cricket will be played in heaven, where there will be infinite resources, but here on earth the game has to deal with finite amounts of time and money. Test cricket takes up the most time (part of its attraction for me), while T20 generates the most money.

When it comes to money, only The Big Three of India, England and Australia are financially secure and can carry on as normal, although their tendency to hog the calendar and the dollars amongst themselves does no good to the game as a whole, unless they are happy having just three countries playing at the top level.

For the rest, they are being squeezed into an intractable situation where they cannot afford to play bilateral cricket unless it is against one of the above trio, and they are also losing spots on the calendar and their top players to the T20 leagues that are, frankly, becoming an epidemic.

No matter how well the Proteas are doing, we have to realise that, however we try to dress up our cricket, we have become bit-part players in the global game. The fact that only Zimbabwe will play less international cricket over the next five years says it all.

Although the new administration are doing a good job in bringing stability to South African cricket, the failures of the previous boards and executive is now coming back to haunt them. Not only did they leave CSA with empty coffers, but we have little standing at the ICC. South African cricket is seen as insignificant players in the boardroom, their administrators inexperienced in the ruthless environment of the ICC.

One often wonders whether the ICC are there to look after the best interests of all the countries that play the game or are they just there to do the bidding of the three nations that dominate or monopolise the sport. On their own website, they say “the ICC governs and administrates the game and works with our members to grow the sport”.

Is that in just three countries or globally and surely governs implies a leadership role?

While fingers are rightfully pointed at the ICC for their lack of leadership in grappling with these complex issues, we, as fans, also need to look at ourselves.

South Africa’s reduced Test schedule was greeted with outrage and, as CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki has said, hopefully that hunger for more long-form cricket will translate into much-improved attendances at the stadiums.

So bring your families and show the powers-that-be and the broadcasters that Test cricket is still a much-loved product.

Recent surveys by Fica, the international body of players’ associations, show that the majority of players still regard Test cricket as the pinnacle.

Let’s all get behind that sentiment.

Life in France is good (although he complained the biltong is not the same as at home) judging by the sparkle in Trevor Nyakane’s eye and his lean and mean look at the Springbok hotel in Pretoria on Thursday.

The former Bulls prop joined Racing 92 at the beginning of the year and will be a useful source of information on next year’s Rugby World Cup hosts. Nyakane picked up an injury towards the end of the French season which prevented him from playing in Racing’s unsuccessful Champions Cup semi-final and Top 14 quarterfinal.

But the 33-year-old was thrilled to be able to watch the charge of the South African teams in the United Rugby Championship.

“Being in France has given me a different perspective on rugby, and I’ll be giving that information to the Springbok team. It’s lovely coming back, I feel at home, you can get biltong over there but it’s not the same!

“I was really amazed watching the URC. At the start of the competition, you had to scroll to the second page of the log to find any of the South African teams, and then we ended up with three teams in the playoffs!

“Racing play Champions Cup rugby against Leinster, so we know what they are capable of and it was really amazing for the Bulls to go there and win. It shows that there are only greener pastures for our teams,” Nyakane said.

The versatile frontranker’s focus is now on the Tests against Wales and he says the never-say-die attitude of Wayne Pivac’s side is their strongest attribute.

“Wales have a lot of experience and they never let go. Some teams you can just beat into submission, but Wales keep coming until the final whistle blows.

“They will try and impose themselves in the game, but as South Africans we are never shy of a challenge,” Nyakane said.

While Thursday’s function was to introduce the new Springbok squad to the media, who coach Jacques Nienaber described as the brokers between the team and the fans/sponsors, who he said were ultimately their employers, it was unsurprising that the players were more excited about the prospect of playing in full stadiums again.

“We’ve really missed the fans, they mean a lot to us,” Nyakane said. “We went through the Lions tour last year without any crowds, it was a good tour but we really missed the guys out there keying us up.

“I would urge all fans to purchase tickets and come out and support us, and I can assure them we will give of our best.”

Judging by his debut for the Bulls, a great sleeper talent in South African rugby may have awoken in the form of flyhalf Johan Goosen.

The 28-year-old has already played 13 times for the Springboks, but the last of those appearances was nearly five years ago. Goosen has been out-of-sight, out-of-mind in France, apart from when he made headlines for all the wrong reasons by getting out of his contract with Racing 92 by retiring from the game, only to pop up less than two years later for Montpellier on an even bigger contract.

But his first game back for the Bulls last weekend was an unqualified success as his brilliance in the final quarter carried them to a shock win over the Springbok-laden SA A team.

“I took a couple of decisions that I regret, but I’m not looking back, I’m looking forward. I’m just trying to play better and better, if I can play at my best then maybe returning to the Springboks would be the cherry on top. But it was a massive honour to start at flyhalf for the Bulls and the match was one of the highlights of my career, I was very happy.

“For a franchise team, it was a massive opportunity to see where we stand. If we are going to be honest, the whole land expected us to lose by 30-40 points because SA A had a very good pack. But the team worked so hard, in the end it was a relief and it was lekker to win and bring the group even more together as a team. I still feel I have something to offer for the Bulls,” Goosen said on Tuesday.

Goosen admitted that being over-emotional at times had given him something of a brittle temperament, but there is now an element of steeliness to him and he certainly showed his mettle in Cape Town. It stems from when he moved to France as a 22-year-old and joined Racing 92 in Paris. He was not alone there – All Blacks legend Dan Carter and Irish great Jonathan Sexton were there too and they provided precious guidance.

“I had always been a flyhalf but when I played in France I was moved to outside centre and fullback because Dan Carter was there. It was a no-brainer and I learnt a lot from him. As a youngster at Racing, Jonny Sexton was there too for my first year and they are both top-class flyhalves that I could learn from. I asked a lot of questions and they were both very helpful.

“I can sometimes be a bit emotional so I asked Dan how he looks so calm and collected at pressure kicks. He said he just follows his processes, he just tries to stand back and take the emotion out of it. He’s not a very emotional person anyway. And then it was difficult at Montpellier because they just throw you the ball and expect you to play. You can sign the best players but you still need a coach to steer you in the right direction,” Goosen said.

Judging by the antics of the Members Council at Saturday’s Cricket South Africa AGM, local cricket fans can thank their lucky stars that there is now a predominantly independent Board that has been put in place to oversee the strategy and vision of the embattled organisation going forward.

In between clowning around in a meeting that has serious consequences for South African cricket and subverting the democratic process by trying to elect people by consensus rather than putting everything to a vote, the Members Council did also manage to object to one of the independent directors named by the Nominations Panel.

Advocate Norman Arendse can be an enormously controversial, divisive figure as he has shown in previous stints on the CSA board, and the Members Council were unanimous in their unhappiness with his appointment. Newly-elected CSA Members Council president Rihan Richards was vague about just why they objected to Arendse, other than to say he was the lead independent director when dismissed CEO Thabang Moroe was appointed and he has made derogatory utterances about CSA in his time off the board.

The Nominations Panel agreed to reconsider Arendse’s appointment, but according to Dr Stavros Nicolaou, the chairman of the Interim Board, they can consider input from stakeholders but can pretty much appoint who they like as long as they meet the eligibility criteria.

The seven independent directors that were confirmed on Saturday are Advocate Steven Budlender, a self-described cricket obsessive; former Proteas batsman and convenor of selectors Andrew Hudson; Simo Lushaba, who has a doctorate in Business Administration and has extensive experience on several boards; governance expert Lawson Naidoo, the executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution; Andisa Ntsubane, a marketing and communications expert whose face is well-known in cricket circles through his work with major sponsors; former MultiChoice CEO Mark Rayner and Ntombi Ravele, a seasoned sports administrator who was involved in boxing, netball and tennis.

Ravele is the only woman on the board because the Members Council could not find it in their hearts or resolve to follow through on their oft-spoken belief in gender equality as they elected Border president Simphiwe Ndzundzu, who has been accused of breaking a woman’s arm with a knobkerrie when he went to a colleague’s house and attacked him and his elderly mother, ahead of Central Gauteng Lions president Anne Vilas.

Ndzundzu, head of a province whose financial situation is almost as disastrous as their on-field performance, and Vilas, in charge of arguably the most successful union in the country, found themselves tied for the fifth non-independent director’s position. Ndzundzu has also accused Vilas of being racist when she raised the allegations of his gender violence.

The four other non-independent directors elected are Daniel Govender (KZN), John Mogodi (Limpopo), Craig Nel (Mpumalanga), Tebogo Siko (Northerns).

Interestingly, neither Richards nor Donovan May of Eastern Province, who was elected vice-president of the Members Council, made themselves available for the Board. While Richards said this was “to ensure clear separation between the Members Council and the Board”, history suggests one will find it is merely an arrangement to ensure seven Members Council representatives share the gravy instead of just five.